Levesque: Heavyweight title fight looks to be rerun that won't be very exciting

On Tuesday, “UFC Tonight” announced a heavyweight title fight pitting current heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez against contender Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva. The two will headline the UFC 160 card slated for May 25 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. If these two names sound familiar it’s because they met almost one year earlier at UFC 146 in Las Vegas.

If you recall, Velasquez put a heavyweight beating on Silva, leaving only a trail of blood behind him as he walked away from the fallen giant. It took Velasquez all of 3:36 of the first round to win by TKO. Now almost a year later, Silva has an opportunity to exact revenge, but this time it’s for the UFC heavyweight belt — a belt that took Cain a year to reclaim.

After losing the heavyweight title to Junior Dos Santos at UFC on FOX 1, Velasquez defeated Bigfoot Silva at UFC 146 and earned an opportunity to fight for the title once again at UFC 155 this past December. Velasquez would challenge the same man who beat him a year prior. After dominating the champion for five rounds Velasquez defeated Dos Santos by unanimous decision and regained his prize possession, the heavyweight championship. Antonio Silva earned his title shot by traveling a different path.

After losing to Cain Velasquez at UFC 146, Silva is riding a two-fight win streak. He defeated Travis Browne by TKO in the first round at UFC on FX and Alistair Overeem by TKO in the third round at UFC 156. It was Silva’s TKO victory over Alistair that forced the UFC to give the giant a title shot against the man who put a beating on him in their first encounter.

If Silva hopes to become champion he’ll need to learn from the mistakes he made during their first fight back in May of 2012. If not this fight has déjà vu written all over it — boring.

Scott Levesque writes a weekly column for the Clarion on mixed martial arts. He will cover MMA at the local, state and national levels. His handle on Twitter is @scottlevesque.